MEANING:noun:1. A view stubbornly held in spite of clear evidence that it's wrong.2. A person who holds such a view.

ETYMOLOGY:According to an old story, a priest used the nonsense word mumpsimus (instead of Latin sumpsimus) in the Mass. Even when told it was incorrect, he insisted that he had been saying it for 40 years and wouldn't change it. The expression is "quod in ore sumpsimus" ('which we have taken into the mouth'). Earliest documented use: 1530. ________________________________________________

UMPSIMUS - a short-sighted baseball umpire who calls the winning homerun "foul" and then calls the game "over" amidst the ensuing uproar.

USAGE:"Burleigh's breathless accounts of the many figures of the British peerage in the story read as though written by some overawed hobbledehoy, someone who fingers the noblemen's lamé draperies in envious amazement and wonders how much they would go for at Wal-Mart."Simon Winchester; 'The Nation's Attic'; The Boston Globe; Jan 11, 2004. ____________________________HOBBLDEJOY - the sheer joy of pulling down the nobleman's lamé draperies and burning them on his front lawn in celebration of the Fourth of July.

ETYMOLOGY:From make, from Old English macian (to make) + bate (contention), from Latin battuere (to beat) which also gave us abate, debate, and rebate. Earliest documented use: 1529.

USAGE:"'You leave my ma out of this, you makebate! She always said you'd end on the gallows, and she was right.'"Barbara Metzger; Christmas Wishes; Signet; 2010. _____________________________________________m -> f

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